Many electronic devices can be connected to a host computer using a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection. Typically, these external devices can establish a wired USB connection with the host by being plugged into a USB port. A USB device manager in the host computer generally assigns a port number to each of the ports and associates the external device that connects to the port with that number. In the absence of any other type of unique identifier (such as a serial number), a software component, such as a plug and play manager, can use the assigned USB port number to identify a specific device across enumeration. This mechanism enables the software component to efficiently work with previously connected external devices, without reinstalling the device drivers each time the devices are being plugged into the same USB ports.